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Sunday, November 14, 2004

Reality TV

Brigid and I are hooked on a few reality shows. I can't decide if reality TV is the end of life as we know it or just really interesting entertainment.

Ron and I watched the first season of The Real World way back in the olden days. That show was definitely groundbreaking, and we ended up watching the first three seasons before letting it move on without us. Reality TV took off from there, but I can't say that we were overly interested in much of these other offerings. We didn't watch any of the bachelor-type shows, for example. We've watched one or two other shows -- the first season of Big Brother, a season of Survivor, a few episodes of later Real Worlds -- but overall, we've pretty much avoided a lot of the reality shows.

But then Brigid and I saw the ads for Joe Millionaire, and it looked really interesting to us. We watched the first episode and were immediately hooked. After that, she and I "graduated" to Married by America and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé. I watched the first season of The Apprentice by myself, and Brigid decided to join me in watching the second season. We're also watching He's a Lady and My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss.

These shows all fit into the category of guilty pleasures, although I do think we're having some pretty good learning opportunities while watching them together. They do a decent job of showing people having to deal with the natural consequences of their actions. But mostly we're just having fun watching people do stupid stuff on TV.

And now Brigid and I are reality TV junkies. We watch the ads for new shows and decide which ones are good enough to watch. They either have to be "realer" than most, such as The Apprentice, or have to be twisted somehow, such as My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss.

So the ad for Tiny House definitely caught our attention. A couple gets married, then has to move into a tiny house. The ad shows clips of the couple trying to cook in the tiny kitchen, sleep in the tiny bed, walk through the tiny rooms, etc., and getting really frustrated about everything. Just as I was wondering if this one would be good enough to watch or just be really stupid, the ad turns out to be one of those fake Geico ads -- and I nearly died laughing!

Okay, you know we want to see it anyway. This one definitely meets our twisted criteria.